Angel Moxie by Dan Hess - Sarcasm and Magical Girls

posted April 29, 2003 by Jer

Let's talk about the "Magical Girl" genre. The "Magical Girl" story is based on one concept: a little girl somehow gains magic powers that allows her to simultaneously (a) dress up in ridiculously cute outfits and (b) battle evil. It is scientifically impossible to name all such stories within a normal human lifetime, but some popular examples would be Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura from Japan and Rainbow Bright in the U.S. I am sure that between those two countries, there have been no less then one billion stories that fit that genre. Until now, however, they have all been lacking one thing to make them cool:

Sarcasm.

Enter Angel Moxie by Dan Hess. In the very first strip, 6th grader Alex O'Connor is given a magic wand and a mission to save the world. What is her reaction? "Great. Just what a kid needs. Responsibility."

It only gets better from there. From the start, it is easy to tell that Angel Moxie is a blatant parody of Studio Clamp's Card Captor Sakura. However, in much the same spirit as Ian Jones-Quartey's RPG World, Angel Moxie actually becomes a quintessential part of the genre it makes fun of. Angel Moxie is a fun story with great characters that adds a much-needed touch of realism and sarcasm to a suffering genre.

Angel Moxie is rated PG, and is updated three times a week. It is much more fun to read several strips at a time, though. Angel Moxie is quite addictive and entertaining, so definitely check it out.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There was one thing that did bug me about Angel Moxie: One of the characters is an obvious rip-off of Jhonen Vasquez' character "Ms. Bitters." It is conceivable that Dan Hess did this for the sake of parody, but I am still waiting to see if he goes somewhere with the obvious reference. If you have read Angel Moxie, please let me know what you think.